Page 22 - Pakistan Link - September 25, 2020

P22 – PAKISTAN LINK – SEPTEMBER 25, 2020
n By Zahirah Lynn Eppard
Chicago, IL
“Poetry is miraculous. I believe
it emerges from deep within the
soul,
Inspired by the Heavenly Divine
and our worldly experiences in this
life.”
That is the opening line of au-
thor Wendy Díaz’s “De Puerto Rico
to Islam With Love.” This collection
of poetry is self-described as works
that speak to identity and faith. But
it is so much more!
Díaz was born and raised for
the formative elementary years of
her life in Puerto Rico. Her mother
was a nurse and her father was a
teacher. They were surrounded by a
large and supportive extended fam-
ily. When Díaz was eight, her father
enlisted in the United States Army
to provide a more stable income
for the family. That job pulled them
away from her motherland “tropical,
heavenly Borinquen (Puerto Rico)”
and to the US. The transition was
wrought with challenges - isolation,
the struggle to learn a new language
and customs, and the terror associ-
ated with her father’s deployment to
the Persian Gulf War. It was in this
backdrop that Díaz self-medicated
with poetry.
The collection gives voice (in
both English and Spanish) to a wide
swath of feelings – joy, worry, grief,
anger, love, and frustration. Díaz
is also a revert, who has embraced
Islam in a big way and works to
share that passion with others. Her
conversion story is provided in the
beginning pages of this book in full
detail. There is no intention to re-
count that here, as she must be in
charge of the full narrative, but some
parts are relevant to understanding
the breadth of this work of heart and
the instruction it can bring.
Díaz was raised Catholic and
had a brief stint in a Catholic school. pose major threats to these nomadic
Her experiences with the harsh dic-
tates of the school’s nuns pushed her
away from a connection with God.
Defiantly, she questioned the tenets
that didn’t make sense to her – the
idolatry of the statues abundant in
the churches; the disjointed notion
of the Trinity, which casts Jesus as
the son of God; the suggestion that
saints can act as intermediaries; the
n By Shabina Faraz
Even as the summer drew to
an end in the last week of
July, the snow had not com-
pletely melted in the pastures of
Deosai in northern Pakistan. This
was a problem for Abdul Rauf
and 400 other Bakarwal families,
who had been stuck at an altitude
of 12,479 feet in Deosai National
Park and the meadows of Astore
waiting to graze hundreds of thou-
sands of animals in higher pas-
tures.
In the winter, these nomadic
people erect temporary villages on
the plains and low-lying areas and
graze their animals in rented fields.
In warmer months, they usually
move to high-altitude meadows in
Azad Kashmir, Swat and Deosai.
Rauf is a member of the no-
madic Kalukhel community of
traditional sheep and goat herders
scattered across the Pir Panjal and
Himalayan mountains. For centu-
ries, Bakarwals have centered their
lives around rearing sheep and goats
(bakra in Urdu) and even today ac-
company their herds across moun-
tains and meadows. In Pakistan,
these indigenous communities live
Bringing Voice to a Life’s Journey to Islam
awkward role of the priest who has
been ordained with the “power” to
forgive a person’s sins.
The family moved often, living
in Fort Bliss (“which it was not!”,
she says), Texas, Alaska, Georgia,
Maryland, and North Carolina. Dis-
connected from traditional church
services, Díaz struggled to make
sense of the world, even “convert-
ing unknowingly to evangelical
Protestantism” while accompanying
a friend to her church. She became
friends with an Egyptian Muslim
girl in high school. This association
debunked many myths about Islam.
However, she was warned by her
pastor to stay away from the religion
and to work to save her friend from
Hell! There would be more awkward
encounters with Christian denomi-
nations to come.
After meeting a new Muslim
friend in yet another family move,
Díaz had her first experience visiting taste, smell, hearing, and sight.
a Masjid during Eid-ul Fitr. She was
taken aback by the warm welcome,
enchanted by the melodious Qur’an
recitations, intrigued by what she
began to learn about the true teach-
ings of Prophet Jesus, peace be upon
him. “These teachings made sense
to me and confirmed what I already
Centuries-Old Bakarwal Community Faces Dual Threat
in the provinces of Khyber Pakh-
tunkhwa, Punjab and the region of
Azad Jammu and Kashmir. Their
livelihood depends on the meat,
wool and leather obtained from
their flock.
Now, changing weather pat-
terns and administrative hurdles
people and their culture.
There are reports that Bakar-
wal families have given up migra-
tion due to the challenges of getting
grazing permits and frequent con-
flicts with landowners on migratory
routes.
Dr Mohammad Nafees, profes-
sor in the department of environ-
mental sciences at the University
of Peshawar, has researched the in-
digenous shepherding groups of
the Hazara and Malakand divisions
of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. He found
that the Bakarwal community con-
tributes significantly to shaping the
environment and economy of the
region.
His study was conducted in
collaboration with the University
of Bern, Switzerland, between 2009
believed – that there were no idols,
no intermediaries, no trinity; there
was only one God.”
Four years later Díaz found
herself declaring the Shahada or the
Islamic testament of faith. Through
her understanding of the Islamic
concept of predestination, she un-
derstood better how each step in her
life journey guided her in this direc-
tion. As many new reverts do, she
jumped headfirst into her practice of
Islam. In “Nothing More” she shares
that conviction.
. . . I am no more than a slave for from wearing the Hijab (headscarf)
whom a path was paved.
A speck of dust that will soon be
wiped away.
I am nothing but a spark from
God’s infinite light,
Limited by my sense of touch,
I am only what He has ordained
when He blew in me my soul,
Constantly reminded by life’s les-
sons that He is in control . . .
Díaz was learning at a rapid
pace and happened into the com-
mon misconception that everything
in a believer’s life struggle was ei-
ther Halal (permissible in Islam)
or Haram (forbidden). This notion
is often imposed by well-meaning
and 2012.
Dr Nafees estimated that there
are 7,400 Bakarwal families in Haz-
ara and Malakand and they have
more than one million animals. In
total, they contribute about $ 64
million to the province annually, he
added.
No official figures are available
www.PakistanLink.com
Muslims who take an assertive step
to “guide” new Muslims. But the
monolithic approach is not literally
correct, and often leaves the well-
intentioned newcomer struggling
to make sense of the world around
them. She shared that common ex-
perience.
Díaz and her family wrestled
with her conversion, her “rejec-
tion” of the faith of her family, her
Hispanic self. She didn’t quite fit in lah chose me, then whatgives you
with the cultural Muslims around
her. Her parents imagined the con-
version was a phase and forbade her
outside of religious gatherings.
Then, 9/11 turned her life up-
side down. She recalled, “An over-
whelming floodgate of allegations
against Islam and Muslims was
opened like Pandora’s box. This
event triggered a domino effect of
racism, hate, and violence that still
plagues the Muslim community and
our society to this very day.”
The tidal wave of intense emo-
tion catapulted Díaz’s writing. Her
poems “They Say,” “Oppression,”
and “What Should We Do?” de-
scribe the chasm between a posi-
tive self-identity and the injustice
levied by those who vilify our faith.
for the population of Bakarwals in
the country as the 2017 census did
not include nomadic people. These
landless communities do not have
identity cards, which require a per-
manent address. They are not regis-
tered with the National Database &
Registration Authority and there-
fore not counted in any state policy.
COMMENTARY
She tackles the challenges of rac-
ism and Islamophobia; of defending
the religion against insurmountable
media foes; of lost opportunities (or
worse!) when religious scholars are
unable to communicate effectively
with youth.
She has also written additional
poems that give voice to the range of
indifference, suspicion, and hostility
often levied at converts by Muslims,
too. In “I Am Not a Convict, I Am
a Convert” she dares to ask, “If Al-
the right to reject?”
“De Puerto Rico to Islam With
Love” speaks to additional topics in-
cluding domestic violence, women
chasing flawed definitions of beauty,
a realization that the seeds of her
conversion lay in first learning about
Malcolm X, and the devastation that
Hurricanes Irma and Maria brought
to her homeland in 2017. As an au-
thor and activist, Díaz has gifted the
reader with poise, pain, and prom-
ise.
I am the American, the Muslim.
I am the daughter of immi-
grants,
I am the relative of veterans,
I am the descendant of natives,
I am the future of greatness.
I am Muslim.
A nudge to contemplate. And
so much to be inspired by.
Wendy Díaz is a Puerto Rican
Muslim writer, an award-winning
poet, translator, and mother of five.
She is the co-founder of Hablamos
Islam, Inc., a non-profit organiza-
tion that produces educational re-
sources about Islam and culture in
Spanish. She is also the Spanish con-
tent coordinator for the I s l a m i c
Circle of North America’s WhyIs-
lam Project, and a columnist for
MuslimMatters.com. Díaz has also
written, illustrated, and published
10 children’s books and is a frequent
speaker at major conferences. She
is also my friend and sister in this
Deen.
(Zahirah Lynn Eppard is Sound
Vision’s Director of Religious Edu-
cation)
https://www.soundvision.com/
article/bringing-voice-to-a-life-s-
journey-to-islam?eType=EmailBl
astContent&eId=6b04e6cc-f550-4
2b7-bbdd-9b339c752160
The most reliable data on Guj-
jars is from the Census of India in
1931. It reported there were around
2 million people from these nomad-
ic, cattle-rearing communities, in-
habiting eight provinces and states.
Dr Nafees said that Bakarwals
are part of essential ecosystem ser-
vices and uphold a national cultural
legacy.
“These nomads and their herds
provide nitrogen and phosphorus to
meadows and fix the nutrient cycle,”
he said. He added that the animals
help pollination and are also the
backbone of the organic meat, wool
and leather industries.
Bakarwals are often criti-
cized by forest authorities for grazing
more animals in a meadow or field
than its capacity, illegally cutting
down trees and smuggling herbs.
However, Dr Nafees addressed this
allegation in his research saying
“these people manage their business
themselves; if there is less grass in
pastureland, they move to another”.
Rauf also denied the allegations
of overgrazing. “We have our own
rules. We don’t graze more than 10
families in one field. The forest de-
partment has check-posts every
BAKARWAL, P24